At-risk women find empowerment

onRoute22 gathers homeless and at-risk women together to talk about who they are, their values, and dreams for the future.

The women’s group meeting at a temporary homeless shelter at Grace Baptist Church in downtown was just wrapping up when Renee Manuel suddenly announced she had composed a poem, a little treat she wrote up before class because she arrived early.

“Super-grit women we are,” she read to the rapt audience of eight. “We come from here, there and afar. … Unity expressed, recovery put to test, exemplifies to impress all who show interest. On Route 22, we know what to do.”

It was a mic-drop moment followed by hoots and cheers from the other women who came to the onRoute22 (named after the bus line that’s routinely used as an ersatz overnight shelter) workshop. Started last year by Eileen Hunter and Kirsty Duncan, it’s a new program that brings homeless and at-risk women together to talk with an eye toward the future: their values and goals, who they are and who they want to become.

“Women come here looking for something new, something fresh, exciting and different,” said Manuel, who was the first to sign up for the courses in May 2016 and now comes back as an alumni member. “It gives us different things to do and involves us with people in the community. It offers a new light at the end of the tunnel.”

Duncan, a real estate broker, leads the eight-week courses: “Finding Our Way,” “Navigating the World,” and “Body and Soul.” While she has no background in education or leading seminars, she comes off as a natural teacher and even creates workbooks from scratch.

Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group

Renee Manuel participates in the onRoute22 program. The nonprofit offers homeless and at-risk women support and classes in a group setting to help them get back on track.

The Wish Book money would be used to expand those workshops — currently the founders pay for them out of pocket. It would also be used to pay fees for occasional team-building exercises, such as entering a 5K walk or a pizza night. Hunter and Duncan would also like to create an emergency fund for women in crisis who can’t meet specific needs through other nonprofits, such as buying clothes for a job, over-the-counter medications or an emergency hotel stay because of a violent partner.

Hunter said she’d also like to start an ambitious social enterprise aspect, teaching homeless women textile and marketing skills that could earn a living wage.

“It’s a dream, but I’d love it if it turned into having a workshop and a dormitory — not a shelter, a dorm — where women could get all kinds of experience,” she said. “The workshops are helping women find themselves, then after that they need the skills to take the next step.”

The two founders met during the final days of the Jungle, the sprawling Coyote Creek homeless encampment that was swept in late 2014. Duncan, who has long been an advocate for women’s issues, had recently begun reaching out to the homeless — at first by joining feedings and backpack distributions at St. James Park.

She readily acknowledges she “didn’t know the first thing about what I was doing” when she showed up with packs and breakfast — bagels, bags of nuts, and a lot of apples.

“They weren’t interested, especially in the apples and finally I said, ‘Hey, take an apple — they’re good for you!” Duncan recalled. “And I kid you not, the man gave me a big-old smile and he didn’t have any teeth — of course he didn’t want an apple.”

Hunter had more experience, having founded the Women’s Gathering Place safe-haven at First Presbyterian Church on 4th Street in downtown San Jose. At the Jungle, helping hundreds of displaced homeless trying to save their possessions from a chaotic and filthy landscape of mud, heavy machinery and law enforcement, both women took on personal caseloads of dozens of folks who needed help.

“I spent six months helping them move from one encampment to another and they kept getting swept,” Duncan said. “I thought ‘We’re not getting anywhere. This is not having an impact.’”

And she had a strong affinity for the struggles of the homeless women in particular. But there were so many — “I can’t connect and bond individually with 40, 50, 60 women at once, that’s just not going to happen.”

“But I started kicking around the idea that there’s gotta be a way to connect with these women and help them,” Duncan said, “but I had no idea what that was going to look like.”

Duncan saw that other nonprofits had focused on housing and employment, but she wanted to help those who weren’t yet ready to tackle that level.

“When you are unhoused and outside, that’s often not even in your peripheral vision — you are thinking survival,” she said. “We need to meet them where they are, support them, shore them up, give them their dignity back and provide hope.”

Those who attend call themselves “super-grit women,” and, as it did when Manuel recited it in her poem, it’s a term that conjures pride and collective strength.

“Some of us have been through horrific ordeals that we can’t discuss,” said Izeda, a 47-year-old San Jose resident who declined to give her last name. “And super-grit women means that no matter what we’ve been through, we are still standing. We can get back up anytime.”

PATRICK TEHAN/BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

Program founder Kirsty Duncan, holds a worksheet on core values during a workshop.

HOW TO HELP

Donations will help onRoute22 provide homeless and at-risk women with supportive workshops; an emergency fund to cover things like clothes, medication or transportation; and sewing equipment to help develop work skills. Goal: $15,000